If you're new here, this blog will give you the tools to become financially independent in 5 years. The wiki page gives a good summary of the principles of the strategy. The key to success is to run your personal finances much like a business, thinking about assets and inventory and focusing on efficiency and value for money. Not just any business but a business that's flexible, agile, and adaptable. Conversely most consumers run their personal finances like an inflexible money-losing anti-business always in danger on losing their jobs to the next wave of downsizing.
Here's more than a hundred online journals from people, who are following the ERE strategy tailored to their particular situation (age, children, location, education, goals, ...). Increasing their savings from the usual 5-15% of their income to tens of thousands of dollars each year or typically 40-80% of their income, many accumulate six-figure net-worths within a few years.
Since everybody's situation is different (age, education, location, children, goals, ...) I suggest only spending a brief moment on this blog, which can be thought of as my personal journal, before delving into the forum journals and looking for the crowd's wisdom for your particular situation.

I just watched this debate on climate change (thanks to T_ from pointing it out) … and now I feel a rant is coming on.

I’m happy that some are still willing to debate. Then again, maybe I’m not. I think it’s sad when science is being “debated” in a “fair and balanced” manner. It reflects a complete misunderstanding on part of the people (journalists and politicians?) of what the point of science is. The point of science is to provide a true (useful) understanding of the natural world. Good science provides a useful and coherent understanding. Bad science provides a useless understanding that has holes and inconsistencies.

The science just is what it is, not a question of rhetorical skills (few scientists really have such skills because they are completely used to exchanges like “Hey, you know I was wrong and you’re right. Now, let’s get on with our work.”). Now, if we accept this, we can debate whether or not we would prefer 50 additional years of fossil fuel driven growth-fun and let the grandchildren (and nature) pay for it with an eroded land base and the floodings, dust bowls, altered malaria vectors, heat waves, and firestorms that entail, just like we’re now debating whether to let people keep their earnings or whether it should be taken and distributed to non-earners or whether to pay for schools or geriatric care. THAT is a political question, and THAT can be debated, because THAT is part of the democratic process. (If we so believe that we humans have the right to decide the destiny of of entire other species.) However, the scientific process itself is not a damn democracy!

About a half decade ago, I spent a lot of my avocational time digging into the field of energy, in particular oil depletion. (I was even in a book).
At that time I naively believed that the problem of the lack of action was a lack of information and understanding. I was thinking like a scientist. Clearly, the lack of action was due to not knowing the problem. If people became aware of the problem, surely they would take the obvious step. Not!
Like with peak oil, the problem of climate change is not a lack of information. The information is there. It’s just that people prefer not to read and go on debating and postponing, because hey, I don’t see a problem right now, do you. All these things that are happening are simply due to bad luck, right. Or like with oil, where there was a run up as predicted, it gets blamed on something else, like traders, or bad levies.

I think this is the human condition and as a result I stopped my efforts in informing. Today my general stance is essentially that we’re screwed. Royally screwed. Humans have evolved to be mostly self-centered (me and mine) political creatures; not rational caretakers (we’re certainly not bright enough currently for that job anyway) of the planet and future generations. My efforts are thus no longer in providing information (a quick google search should give you all the information you need) and it is not even in trying to debate with people when their idea of debating is to win the argument rather than to find the truth. Now my efforts is simply to mitigate the impact of global stupidity for myself and anyone who will listen to thrive in a world with a declining land base mostly by being mobile, not being dependent on stuff, getting out of the accumulation mindset, being extremely flexible, and physically and mentally ready, while not contributing further to the problem. Yeah, me and mine, alright. But it is the only approach I can see will work.

64 users responded in " The climate science debate "

I can understand why this is so frustrating, but don’t take it out on human nature. This is mainly a problem of political process. Humans are quite capable of adapting to almost anything if our survival is on the line. But that doesn’t mean we WANT TO. The hard macro decisions have to be made by politicians. We’ve got 2 major political parties in the US government and their main motivating factor is election and re-election. If by some freak accident, say, a president were to get committed to the cause of making the country more environmentally responsible, then it would immediately be opposed by the other party and they would use it as a tool to get elected. We’re quite good at adaptation, but not when we’re given a choice. It’s like trying to quit a drug habit when your dealer is throwing it in your face for free. So unfortunately, we’re probably not going to be pro-active at fixing this, but maybe technology can bail us out in time (ie – electric cars, better solar panels)…

“We humans have the brains and the means to reach planetary sustainability. The problem is with us and our focus on short-term growth and profits, which is likely to cause suffering on a vast scale. With foresight and thoughtful planning, this suffering is completely avoidable.”

30 years ago didn’t scientists think we were headed into another ice age?.. For that matter, if there was an ice age, doesn’t that mean that climate has been changing throughout history, even before we started burning hydrocarbons like crazy?

You’re right, the scientific method really isn’t up for debate. What’s up for debate is whether those that have studied this phenomena have used it correctly, and taken into account the appropriate variables.

For that matter, it shouldn’t be that hard to tell whether the climate has changed on average for the recent past. What isn’t as easy to determine (in my opinion) is the source of the change.

The dunce said,

This is a topic I have debated innumerable times over decades. Often I have observed a fundamental flaw in thinking whereby people assume othere is only one cause to an effect. They struggle to understand the same outcome could be derived from very different casues. Education has a lot to answer for.

jpp said,

Sometimes I think we will only be moved to action if peoples are dropping dead gasping by the thousands in the streets and the water is slushing over the dikes globally forcing mass movements and chaos. I do hope we’re not passed the tipping point yet. On a high note; many young people I meet today are very interestested in sustainability and are turning away from meat, cars and big mansions. I hope a trend is set to ultimately reach top political decisions. On a low note, we can afford to be engaged, but we seem to be dwarved by the billions who are trying to merely survive and fight their way to something approaching a Western level of life. True support to speed up their struggle and simultaneous radical conversion in the West seems far away yet.

Caine said,

Jacob said, ” as a result I stopped my efforts in informing.” Seems you got sucked into it in the comments.

It’s much like the debate I used to have on smoking. I would say it’s harmful, then folks told me to provide “proof”. I went on and on, feeling it was my duty to try and provide it. It was never enough.

I like Nassim Taleb’s take on it. It really wasn’t my duty to inform people about how bad smoking was, it was their duty to prove the benefits of doing something unnatural like smoking.

And so it goes for climate change. I have millions of years of evolution to prove that “natural” works. They (?) have to prove the benefits of the unnatural…adding 64,000 man made chemicals to the atmosphere. I’m still waiting for a single reply.

paul n said,

I’ve just read like 50 complicated or left vs. Right replies. Isn’t the real problem that there are far too many people in the world now? We are just competing more for space and resources and make more waste?
Why is that topic never one that wants to be discussed? Should a couple have 8 kids ? Expecially the ones that they cant even afford or bring up properly in a good healthy family setting.
All these problems in theory would go away if going forward people would voluntarily would have 3 or better still 2 kids if we want numbers to slowly decline.

there – problem solved – all the theoretical engineers can take a break from thinking now .

ImaginaryNumber said,

Jacob said,

“…Politically speaking, people have already decided to continue business as usual, so what (smart) individuals can do is simply to avoid the fallout. Obviously, since “we” (actually they, I have not) have decided on this path, not everybody can avoid dealing with “trying times”, but a few prepared can and I intend to be one of them…”

Jacob, could you be more explicit what “trying times” you think will occur to you, personally, if you weren’t to “prepare” for Climate Change? And would you be more explicit how you plan to “prepare” for the negative effects of Climate Change?

It seems to me that although Climate Change will be worldwide, the effects will vary greatly, depending on your location: wetter; dryer; too hot; longer growing season etc.

If, as a world-wide society, we don’t control Climate Change, then we must adapt, ether individually or as groups. And those with the most resources (read: $$) may find it easiest to adapt.

Jacob said,

@ImaginaryNumber – We have deliberately chosen to live in the better (less adversely affected) areas of the US, specifically Chicago. We’re looking forward to the following impacts:
– More frequent storms/heavy rainfall will overload the old sewer systems causing backup. This is already happening about once a year. The solution costs around $7000/house.
– In the high emissions scenario, the average temperature in this area will increase by almost 20F (usually global averages are quoted and they don’t sound too bad, but inland temps will be much higher) by the end of the century. That’s about 2F/decade. Heat waves will become more brutal. They could possibly overload the electric grid. 125F with no A/C is tough, especially for old people. They die. The solution is part passive cooling measures and staying in shape and have a sufficiently strong cardiovascular system to deal with this.
– Global food production will decrease substantially because plants don’t grow as well over a certain temperature range. Food will become more expensive and erratic as droughts become more frequent. We already saw how cattle ranchers killed off their livestock in 2012 because feed became too expensive. There’s a limit to how far we can go with that. So I have stocked up on food and I plan to increase this to avoid rationing, shortages, …

So that’s about it for this area.

ImaginaryNumber said,

@Jacob
If weather were my only consideration (and not earthquakes, for instance) I would rather ‘weather’ Climate Change in the Mediterranean climate of San Francisco rather than the Continental Interior climate of Chicago. Longer growing season and fewer Heating or Cooling Days in California.

Are you stockpiling food in anticipation of a temporary inconvenience lasting a few days or weeks, or are you thinking of a society-altering months or years of shortages?

I’ve only been reading this site a few days, so forgive me if you’ve already discussed all of this elsewhere. Have you posted any sort of supplies list?

Jacob said,

@ImaginaryNumber – These are society-altering levels of change, not mere inconveniences. Under current emissions and the goals that governments agree to agree on sometime in the future, the climate of San Francisco will look more like the climate of Los Angeles does today, except drier in the summer and wetter in the winter. Given the change in snow cover of the Sierras and the change in rainfall patterns, the frequency of droughts will increase so you can add water shortages to the Chicago impacts (but remove the sewer impacts). That is, you’d need to store water as well. Water for farmland is expected to decrease by 50% by 2050 and 90% by 2100. This means the Central Valley will no longer be viable as an agricultural area. CA will probably be importing food if people still want to live there several decades from now. I would not be completely surprised in the Southwest turns into the new rust belt.

I have not posted any supply lists as impacts vary widely by area. I just happen to know CA because I used to live there.

The climate science is not even half of it. There is the economics and values. For example our grand children will more likely be much richer than us even if we let AGW run, so should we sacrifice for them?

So the climate is warming due to burning fossil fuels but people live on the equator, no one lives on Antarctica and there are huge parts of northern Asia and Canada that are very sparsely populated because it is so cold. Further since the invention of air-conditioner people have been moving to warmer climates. There is also a small possibility that AGW will save us from another ice age.

theanimal said,

Floccina,

Do you see the irony in using A/C to combat climate change??? I think you might have to do some more research. Increasing temperatures are just one of many negative effects.

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